“In two separate papers contained in the January 4th issue of the Cell Press Journal, Scientists in Japan have used old immune T-cells and regenerated them into T-cells that multiplied in greater numbers, had longer life spans and showed a greater ability to target diseased cells in HIV-infected cells and cancer cells. These discoveries could lead to more effective immune therapies.”

The human body contains immune cells programmed to fight cancer and viral infections, but they often have short life spans and are not numerous enough to overcome attacks by particularly aggressive malignancies or invasions.

The techniques the groups employed involved using known factors to revert mature immune T cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which can differentiate into virtually any of the body’s different cell types. The researchers then expanded these iPSCs and later coaxed them to re-differentiate back into T cells. Importantly, the newly made T cells were “rejuvenated” with increased growth potential and lifespan, while retaining their original ability to target cancer and HIV-infected cells. These findings suggest that manipulating T cells using iPSC techniques could be useful for future development of more effective immune therapies.

In one study, investigators used T cells from an HIV-infected patient. The re-differentiated cells they generated had an unlimited lifespan and contained long telomeres, or caps, on the ends of their chromosomes, which protect cells from aging. This is significant because normal aging of T cells limits their expansion, making them inefficient as therapies. “The system we established provides ‘young and active’ T cells for adoptive immunotherapy against viral infection or cancers,” says senior author Dr. Hiromitsu Nakauchi, of the University of Tokyo.

The other research team focused on T cells from a patient with malignant melanoma. The re-differentiated cells they created recognized the protein MART-1, which is commonly expressed on melanoma tumors. “The next step we are going to do is examine whether these regenerated T cells can selectively kill tumor cells but not other healthy tissues. If such cells are developed, these cells might be directly applied to patients,” says senior author Dr. Hiroshi Kawamoto, of the RIKEN Research Center for Allergy and Immunology. “This could be realized in the not-so-distant future.”

New Biomaterial Gets ‘Sticky’ With Stem Cells

Dec. 10, 2012 — Just like the bones that hold up your body, your cells have their own scaffolding that holds them up. This scaffolding, known as the extracellular matrix, or ECM, not only props up cells but also provides attachment sites, or “sticky spots,” to which cells can bind, just as bones hold muscles in place.

A new study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom found these sticky spots are distributed randomly throughout the extracellular matrix in the body, an important discovery with implications for researchers trying to figure out how to grow stem cells in the lab in ways that most closely mimic biology. That’s because the synthetic materials scientists currently use to mimic ECM in the lab don’t have randomly distributed sticky spots, but instead are more uniformly sticky.

The study was published by Adam Engler, a bioengineering professor at UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, and Giuseppe Battaglia, a professor of synthetic biology at the University of Sheffield in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). The group then mimicked this random stickiness in a foam biomaterial made out of polymers.

Battaglia and Engler explained that the foam uses two polymers, one that is sticky and one that is not, that separate from each other in solution. “It’s like what happens when you make balsamic vinaigrette and all the vinegar is randomly distributed in tiny bubbles throughout the oil,” said Engler. “We shook these two polymers up sufficiently to form randomly distributed nano-scopic patches of the sticky material amid the non-sticky material.”…